18 October 2008

Halloween - Part 3 - Costumes to avoid

There are few things more awkward than showing up to a costume party wearing a sexy bee-girl costume that you bought at the last second because you didn't know what else to get. What is more awkward is showing up to a party in a last-minute-decision sexy bee costume and seeing that a dozen other girls have the same awkward costume that they picked up at Wal-Mart that day on their lunch breaks.

Maybe that sort thing of doesn't bother other people but when I see people in identical costumes, I assume they are henchmen for a supervillian or a chorus line for an impromptu musical number.

Being a lackey isn't that great

This is part of my beef with store-bought costumes, but there's many other reasons. Halloween is about fun and you can't be having too much fun if you're itchy and sweaty from crappy polyester. Plus a lot of costumes are expensive and not worth a fraction of the price.

This is a sad Optimus Prime costume. Take away the helmet and it'd be the coolest pajamas an eight-year-old boy could have, but it's terrible for Halloween. Also note that the kid isn't wearing shoes. He's wearing matching socks with his costume. Poor kid will have bullies giving him books on Halloween just so they can dump them.

It used to be that people go as "a goth" for Halloween. This year a new trend emerge: gothic versions of classic costumes. So now we have gothic lolita Raggedy Ann for all the little girls who want to be a hit at the next preschool rave.

The kind of guy who wears a giant dead rat (with no arm holes) to a party is not the kind of guy you would want to date. He's probably the type of person who tells the family dead baby jokes over Thanksgiving dinner and then whines that his family doesn't understand his edgy sense of humor.

This costume is frightening with its bizarre inhuman face But once bullies recover from the immediate anime-induced shock, they will beat the crap out of this kid.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this costume will probably sell very well with the cool kids. Not because of the subject of the costume, but because you cold turn the purple suit into a decent Joker outfit if you're mom would buy you that costume because she thinks Heath Ledger was too scary for your age group.

I don't have a beef with pet costumes. After all, they can be hard to sew and it is pretty funny to see your confused dog or angry cat wandering the house dressed as a frog. It is pretty harmless-

Every mid-sized city has a skeevy costume store that's rented and open for about two months of the year. It will be a store far too large for its inventory and, instead of actual shelves, will only have peg boards to display their wares. It will be dimly lit and just barely meets the safety and fire codes. But there will be a lot of intricate decorating items for your yard. (My favorite was a life size robotic zombie that realistically threw up toxic waste into a barrel.)

The other day I popped in one of places just to see what they have. Eventually a greasy employee caught me playing with the wigs.

"Can I help you?" he asked."Uh... no, I was just playing," I answered truthfully."No, that's cool," he said. "But if you are wondering, we have a ton of sexy girl costumes in the back. You can even try the on here. As many as you like." *wink wink*

Nothing says "We are creepy and there are cameras in the dressing rooms" like encouraging female costumes to try on many sexy girl costumes.